Customer Rating: 
Summary: The bizarre "conquest" (read passing through) of the Sahara.
Comment: The French did possibly the most strange of "conquests" in his exploration and conquest (?) of the SAHARA (I do not think it is conquerable at all, as it happens if you are lucky you can travel through it... but to live there?...
No matter what, with an obstination and lots of personal pride and adventure (even against "official policy") some enterprising individuals and french imperialists carved a piece of absolute emptiness to paint "blue" on the maps...
An History of man's folly perhaps... but quite an adventure... and truth as usual is stranger then fiction.
A most fascinating read... Porch excels in a no nonsense prose and a dry and witty sense of humor.
Recommended for fans of P.C.Wren
ADB
PS: Probably his best book. If you enjoy... try to see the french film FORT SAGANNE (Depardieu-Deneuve-Marceau)... it is long, slow and magnificent... obviously a flop at the box office!.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Higly readable
Comment: I buy a lot of books purely because they look interesting and I'm incorrigibly curious about subjects I know little or nothing about.
Of course, this means that I read an awful lot of rubbish, but it has the benefit that occasionally I run across something good, like this. A history of the French expansion into the Sahara from early intrepid tourists to later full scale military imperialism, Conquest of the Sahara tells a tale of hubris, Imperialist ambition, national pride and individual ambition.
Accessibly written with a dry sense of humour, Douglas Porch outlines a century of Empire building to no end; each of the reasons for building a French Empire in the Sahara were rebutted at the time, never mind now. A railway to the French holdings in Chad could never happen, there were simply no economic benefits to trade in one of the poorest regions on earth, and ferrying troops south to counter british holdings in Nigeria proved pointless due to a British/French entente against an agressive Germany.
Nevertheless, the French carved out an enormous holding at great personal and economic cost with spuroius or even nonexistant reasons for doing so. It's a fascinating tale.
If this book could be improved it would be with a good editor; a number of times players in this game appear with no background or indication who they are, and several major places do not appear on the map at the front making it occasionally troublesome to keep an eye on what is going on.
A minor quibble, though, in what is a highly accessible and interesting piece of popular history.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A cracking book hidden in a dull cover
Comment: I came across this book at my public library and was attracted by the cover with its picture of an oasis, a group of Tuareg and the inevitable camel! It is a very readable account of the conquest of the Sahara Desert by the French colonial army based in Algeria, Tunisia and Senegal. Full of fascinating detail, it brings to life the major players of the 1870 to 1914 period. The tale is told with dry wit and is peppered with bizarre facts. I was left marvelling at the tenacity and daring of the French officers and, on occasion, at their barbarity. Driven by greed and justified by a spurious railroad to nowhere in particular, the officers carved out an empire for France without permission or official backing. If you are interested in the desert and the history of France and North Africa then this is a must. The book is littered with the bleached bones of the French and their opponents.
